Sunspots and temperatures

Abstract

Power spectrum analyses of temperature series at New York City (1822–1956), the Netherlands (1735–1944), and central England (1698–1955) show that the only significant energy in these spectrums appears at the annual period of 12 months. No significant energy was found corresponding to any known sunspot periodicity. Correlation coefficients between January and July temperatures for the years of each series are uniformly low, ranging from 0.09 to 0.17 for the three series. This indicates a lack of correlation between winter and summer temperatures contrary to what might be expected if temperature variations were controlled to some extent by sunspot variations. It is concluded that no demonstrable connection exists between midlatitude temperatures and sunspots. Effects depending on temperature variations, such as sea level variations, are also independent of sunspot variations.